Moto X4 First Impressions: Mid-ranger with flagship offerings

Lenovo-owned Motorola has launched the fourth iteration of the X-series smartphone in India. Called Moto X4, the smartphone is offered in two variants – 3GB RAM with 32GB storage priced at Rs 20,999, and 4GB RAM with 64GB storage priced at Rs 22,999. The smartphone will be available to purchase via Flipkart and Moto Hubs starting tonight. I was at the launch event and got some time to play around with the smartphone, and here are my first impressions.

In the mid-range segment, smartphones with metal design have become quite common these days, and with the Moto X4, the company wants to change that. The smartphone comes with a metal frame sandwiched between glass on the front and back. The front is dominated by a 5.2-inch Full HD (1080p) display. The 16-megapixel front camera with an LED flash and earpiece sit on the top of the display, whereas the home button integrated with a fingerprint sensor is placed below the display.

The hybrid SIM card slot is placed on the top, whereas the USB Type-C port and the 3.5mm headphone socket are at the bottom. On the right, you have the volume buttons and the power/sleep button. The back features a curved glass with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. The upper half houses a circular dual-camera module along with dual-tone LED flash. There is a slight camera bump too, and it may be a bit bothersome for some.

One of the key highlights of the smartphone is the dual-cameras at the back – featuring one 12-megapixel dual pixel sensor of aperture f/2.0 paired with an 8-megapixel wide-angle sensor of aperture f/2.2. The setup allows you to capture standard and wide-angle photos, and also lets you add DSLR-like bokeh effects to your photos. There is also a selective background mode that lets you keep the subject in focus while background is black and white, or vice-versa.

In the little time I spent with the Moto X4, the camera quality looked decent, but the app does have a shutter lag, where it takes about two seconds to capture, and save the photo to the gallery. Especially when capturing photos in bokeh mode. The front camera quality is pretty good, even in low-light condition. Motorola has also added pro-mode in the front camera, where you can control the ISO, white balance, and exposure.

Now, coming to the OS, the Moto X4 runs on Android 7.1.1 Nougat OS, and the UI is quite close to stock Android. There are however some additions like the Moto app. This essentially allows you to use gestures and actions to control the device. For instance, you can swipe three fingers to capture screenshots, and chop twice for flashlight. Moto is also working on Android 8.0 Oreo update, and it is expected to arrive sometime in the first half of 2018.

You can also wave your hand to trigger Moto display, which is nothing but the Always On display that shows notifications and time. There is also one button navigation mode that gets rid of the Android navigation buttons, and lets you use gestures on the fingerprint sensor to navigate through the menu. Swipe to the left opens recent apps menu, whereas swipe to the left acts as a back key. Tapping the fingerprint sensor takes you to the home screen, whereas tap and hold for one second locks the device. Lastly, tap and hold invokes Google Assistant.

On the specifications front, the smartphone is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 octa-core SoC paired with Adreno 508 GPU. The Moto X4 is armed with a 3,000mAh battery with fast charging. On the connectivity front, you get USB Type-C port, dual-SIM card slots with 4G LTE and VoLTE HD voice calling, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS, and Wi-Fi 802.11ac.

Overall, the Moto X4 will bring tough competition to the mid-range segment with its offering. We will be testing the Moto X4 over the coming weeks and will soon bring you the full review, stay tuned till then.